“Did Legran resign?”
“The following day.” Genrikhovich nodded.
“Where did the letter come from?”
“Legran put it into his personal correspondence file. Eventually all the official correspondence comes to the archives. I was adding the material to Legran’s general documentation file when I saw the letter, so I removed it.”
“I’m still not sure where all this is going,” said Holliday.
Genrikhovich picked up the phone on his desk and spoke in Russian for a moment. Holliday stiffened.
“He is asking for a file,” murmured Eddie, translating. “Nothing more than that.”
A few minutes later a young man appeared carrying a pale pink cardboard file case. He gave it to Genrikhovich, who signed a small chit in return, and then the boy left after a pleasant spasiba and that was that.
“Look,” said the Hermitage document curator. He took an item from the pink file case. This was an eight-by-eight transparency of the base of what appeared to be an octagonal piece of onyx covered by a green felt cover. Genrikhovich took out a second transparency, which he laid beside the first, and then a third. Both the second and third transparencies showed the same eight-sided onyx base with the green felt removed. The second transparency was black-and-white, while a third was in color. The second transparency had the date 1906 drawn on it in white ink. The date on the color transparency was digitally stamped August 12, 2012. The base of the second transparency had the appropriate Faberge hallmark stamped on it: БA
And so did the second, but with one small change: JVA
“I don’t get it,” said Holliday.
“By the 1880s Faberge was the imperial court jeweler. It was one of the functions for the Hermitage to document and photograph each of the Faberge eggs given to the empress by the czar. The first black-and-white transparency shows the base of the Kremlin Egg, also known as the Uspenski Cathedral Egg, made by Faberge in 1903, although it wasn’t given to Alexandra until 1906, for a variety of reasons. The bottom was covered with felt so it wouldn’t scratch delicate surfaces. The master goldsmith in charge of the Kremlin Egg was Johan Victor Aarne, a Finn who worked in the Faberge shop in St. Petersburg from 1891 to 1904, when he returned to Finland. The Cyrillic hallmark is his signature, the punch for making it his alone to use.” Genrikhovich paused. “Three months ago some of the Kremlin treasures were taken out of the collection for repairs and for cleaning. Included among them was the Kremlin Egg; the clockwork mechanisms had become clogged with dust and dirt over the decades, and several of the larger jewels had become loose in their settings.
“Since the Hermitage has the largest and best conservation unit in the Federation, the items were sent here. As chief archivist I was responsible for the documentation of the treasures as they came into the Hermitage, and our photographers took a series of comprehensive detailed exposures of each and every item. The second transparency of the Kremlin Egg was taken at that time.”
“Different marks on the base,” said Holliday.
“Precisely. The JVA mark from the second transparency is also that of Johan Victor Aarne, but it was not used by him until his return to Vyborg, Finland, in 1904. He used the mark between that date and his death in 1934.”
“So sometime in that thirty-year period he made a perfect copy of the egg.”
“Yes,” said Genrikhovich. “The one on display in the Kremlin Armoury is a fake.”
13
The big black ZiL 114 limousine and its front and rear guard of Mercedes G55 four-by-fours sped across the granite cobblestones of Red Square, scattering the small crowds of tourists as it raced towards Spasskaya Gate, the official entrance to the Kremlin.
The thin, partially bald man brooding in the deep leather seat of the passenger compartment looked more like an accountant than the director of the FSB, the feared secret police agency that held sway over the Russian people, but Alexander Vasilyevich Bortnikov liked his unassuming look. Especially the glasses Vladimir had suggested. Bortnikov had nearly perfect vision, but he liked the studious, professorial aspect his oversize spectacles gave him.
The limousine slipped through the broad opening beneath the tower, breaching the ancient fortress with amazing ease. Ivan the Terrible would have spun in his grave. Bortnikov smiled thinly. What was it poet Mikhail Lermontov had said about this place-“the legendary phoenix raised out of the ashes”? If only he knew how appropriate those words were.
As the wall in Berlin had crumbled, so had great Russia’s hopes for the future. Now, with his old friend Vladimir putting the iron back into the Rodina’s soul, there was hope once again. . and it was the Phoenix that would give Russia that chance at restoring her greatness.
The limousine slowed somewhat as it came through the opening in the massive wall and rolled ponderously past the old Supreme Soviet Building. It threaded its way through the maze of buildings until it finally reached the courtyard of the old State Kremlin Palace, once the home of the czars when they were in Moscow.
Vladimir kept his official prime minister’s office in the Russian White House, the modern, Stalinist-era building that was home to Parliament. But he was never one to cut himself off from the real seat of power and maintained his real and private office in a suite of rooms that had once been the apartment of one of the Romanov princes.
The limousine stopped at an entrance at the rear of the building, and Bortnikov waited while Tolya, his chauffeur and sometime bodyguard, opened the door for him. He climbed out of the leather seat and stood briefly in the cool late-afternoon sunshine. He nodded to Tolya, told him to go and get himself a cup of coffee somewhere, and entered the building.
He climbed two flights of narrow stone stairs and continued down a long, ornate hallway, the ceiling arched and covered in gilded cherubim and angels. The walls of the corridor were bright blue watered moire silk, and every few feet there were marble busts depicting an assortment of green gods and goddesses. He reached an arched white door at the end of the hallway, opened it and stepped inside.
Beyond the door was a large vestibule with an ornate gilded desk on the left and a guard seated behind it in full, red-breasted Kremlin guard uniform, complete with the huge Pinochet-style peaked cap and shiny cavalry boots. As Bortnikov stepped into the room the young man snapped to attention, heels clicking, white-gloved hand snapping to the peak of his idiotic cap, his eyes unblinking. The FSB director smiled pleasantly.
The boy was smooth cheeked and very handsome, just his type. There was sweat forming on the young fellow’s forehead. Power was a wonderful thing. Bortnikov gave him a little nod, then crossed the vestibule to a set of double doors. He opened the one on the right and stepped into the sitting room of Vladimir Putin’s private office.
There was no desk, only chairs and tables and glittering blue stone “Imperial Porphyry” columns. The tall windows were covered in bloodred velvet fringed with gold. The chairs were gilt and red upholstery in the Louis Quinze style, the carpets covered with rich “tree of life” patterns from Azerbaijan. The tables by each chair were chased silver and crystal, and the central coffee table the chairs surrounded was a circular slab of inlaid marble held up on curved gold legs with lion’s-paw feet. On the coffee table was a solid-gold platter holding three sweating bottles of red-labeled Istok vodka, a dozen green-and-gold bottles of Baltika 9 beer and the appropriate glassware.